I found it hard to believe that anyone could overlook Ryder with his bright green eyes and those beautiful dimples when he smiled. He just had this air about him that commanded attention. I remembered him throughout the years but as nothing more than a fellow student. I wracked my brains to try to remember anything—who he was friends with, what classes we had together—but I couldn’t remember. He was always just there. Just a presence but never of any significance. And I felt horrible the more I thought about it.
“It was inevitable that my sister would fall for his charm. Every girl did. She was fifteen when she fell pregnant, and terrified of it. How could she raise a baby? Termination wasn’t an option for her because she could never take an innocent life like that. But she was terrified all the same. I sat with her while she told our mum, who cried for days but eventually came round. She was a fantastic support for my sister. Without her, I don’t think my sister or I would have been able to handle everything that followed. I was with her the day she told her boyfriend too.”
I was listening intensely. Ryder’s grip on my hand tightened to the point I was sure he would crush my fingers. His jaw was tense, and there was a fury in his eyes I didn’t understand.
“Ouch, Ryder. You’re hurting me,” I whispered, trying to wiggle my fingers.
“Oh sorry, love. I didn’t mean to.” He quickly released his grip on my fingers, rubbing them gently to ease the pain.
“It’s okay.” I rested my head on his shoulder and let him continue.
“I thought everything would be okay and that he would be there for my sister and support her. He was a good guy like that. But I was wrong. He accused her of sleeping with someone else and saying the baby wasn’t his. She was fifteen, for God’s sake. She wasn’t sleeping around. Eventually he came to realise that he really was the father. I thought that he’d finally step up and be a man, but I was wrong again. He had money. A lot of it. His family offered my sister a ridiculous amount of money to get rid of it, but like I said before, that wasn’t an option for her.”
“They tried to pay your sister off to terminate the baby?” I asked, in complete shock that anyone could be so cruel and heartless.
“Yes, but she refused their money. Needless to say, she and her boyfriend broke up, and I lost my best mate. But that was the best thing that could have happened to either of us. Things got worse for a while. His family had a lot of influence in this town. The slander began, shaming my sister, making her feel worthless. It was horrible to watch my vibrant, outgoing sister turn into a hermit who was too afraid to leave the house. So my mum decided the best thing for her was to go and live with our aunt until after the baby was born. She wanted to get her away from this town and the jerks that live here.”
I didn’t remember any of it. Surely if I went to school with Ryder, I would have known his sister. A pregnant fifteen year old in a town this small was hard to keep secret. Yet somehow, I had managed to miss that too.
“And it worked. I went with her for a few months to help her settle in. I was with her for every appointment and ultrasound. I didn’t leave her side until I was sure she was going to be okay. When I started to see her old self return, I came home. But I came back a different person. Before all of that happened, I’d always just blended into the shadows. Into the crowd. I never really fit in. When I returned, I wanted to put as much distance between me and that asshole as possible. And that’s how the bad boy rep started. It began with an eyebrow piercing and new clothes. Just like you did over the summer.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ryder went through exactly what I did, except worse. His sister became a single mother at sixteen. He lost his best friend. His reputation and his family’s reputation had been tarnished by some jerk. But he’d reinvented himself and came out the other side a better person.
“It all sort of escalated from there. The ditching school and being late for class was not really my fault. It usually had to do with me travelling three hours back to my sister whenever she needed me, which became more frequent once Cole was born.”
“Cole?”
“Cole Ryder Jones.” He smiled proudly. “The greatest kid in the world.”
“Wow, Ryder. I don’t know what to say. You’ve been through so much. And your sister. She’s amazing to get through all of that. You’re a wonderful brother, and Cole is lucky to have you for an uncle.” I reached down and squeezed his hand in mine.
“Thanks, Bailey, but I think I’m lucky to have them, not the other way around. Anyway, that was what I was doing while I was away. Moving Kenzie and Cole home again. It took a lot of time and a lot of begging, pleading, and persuading on my part, but I eventually convinced her enough was enough and she shouldn’t be ashamed anymore. She should be proud and should come home. But last night, when I ran out of here, he’d found out she was back and that she’d kept the baby. His family had led him to believe that she’d terminated the baby and left town out of embarrassment when they’d really been paying her to keep quiet.”
“What happened?” I asked as a sinking feeling settled in the pit of my stomach. I suddenly felt nervous and afraid for the sister and nephew I hadn’t even met. Her ex-boyfriend was a real tool.
“He came round to the house yelling and screaming and throwing things, calling her names and demanding that she take the kid and leave town again. By the time I got there, he’d already left, and it took all of my willpower not to go to his house and beat the life out of him.”
“Why didn’t you? He deserved it.” I was surprised he was able to control himself after all that. His poor sister. I hoped Cole hadn’t witnessed it.
“The look on Cole’s face stopped me. He was scared and crying and curled up in Kenzie’s arms. I decided it was more important to make sure they were okay than to beat the douche’s head in. I can do that anytime,” he said, mumbling something else under his breath that I couldn’t quite catch.
“So I took them both for ice cream and then sat up all night while Kenzie cried. We talked until the early hours and decided that everyone should know the truth. What he did. What his family did. The hell they put my family through. Everyone is going to know.”
“Anything you need, I’m here. I’m sorry for doubting you this morning.” I turned to face him, guilt washing over me as I looked at his sad face. I was so ready to believe that he had been with another girl the night after he’d surprised me at the dance. I was a horrible person for even considering it a possibility.
“I shouldn’t have kept it from you. But now that you know, can we go back to the way things were this morning before you went to school?”
“You still want to be my fake boyfriend even after Christina practically announced to the whole school that you were cheating on me?” Hopefully he would still want to continue the way we had been. I couldn’t lose him completely.
“No, Bailey. I don’t want to be your fake boyfriend,” he said. My heart dropped. That was it. He was actually ending it. “I don’t really think either of us has been pretending for a long time. Do you?” He smiled.